Quantifying flexibility provisions of the ladle furnace refining process as cuttable loads in the iron and steel industry

Abstract

The large-scale integration of renewable energy into power grids brings new problems and challenges to the flexible and stable operation of power systems. Providing flexibility from the industrial load side is an effective way to maintain the balance between power supply and demand in a power grid. Ladle furnaces (LFs) in the iron and steel industry consume copious power resources yet can provide flexible potential in changing power consumption rates. If the flexibility of LFs can be quantified, the iron and steel sites can response the demand signals from the power grid by adjusting their production plans. However, the real-time regulation capability of LFs in the refining process has not been clearly quantified. To fill in the research gaps, an evaluation model to quantify the provisions of flexibility of LFs, as cuttable loads, is proposed. The regulation capacity of LFs is evaluated, and the electricity costs before and after power adjustments are compared. The results of a case study shows that the maximum cuttable load can reach 23.3 MW, and the maximum load-cutting process duration can reach 34 min in the production cycle. The electricity cost may increase by 232 yuan under the background of the time-of-use electricity price and decrease by 797 yuan under the background of the peak electricity price.